Election Integrity Commission

Immediately before the 2020 general election, the USPS was conscripted into a number of States' new mail-in voting process, sometimes incorporating them into a voting scheme that either couldn't be handled or involved unconstitutional work-arounds to let people vote after election day.

The USPS is the only carrier allowed to send flat/letter mail, and so it stands to reason that the USPS would be uniquely suited for the transport of mail-in ballots as part of (at the very least) the federal elections system.

Through this incorporation, the USPS would then be held to specific standards, and likewise the States would be held to specific standards.  The standards would not deviate very far from normal service standards, but might involve specific training processes and/or specific hardware for accepting and transporting ballots.

There has been some experimentation with colocating mail boxes and ballot drop boxes, and adding service kiosks in post office locations.  A digitization process could be handled by the USPS on the back of the proposed dedicated fiber and energy infrastructure that would lend itself to a library and USPS secure communications network, alongside commercial interests.

The digital and fiberoptic communications network concept as proposed would include aspects of security protocols typically associated with banking standards, and as a result would fit into other proposed schemes regarding a light-weight money transfer system.  

What i imagined for that would include person-to-person money forwarding, with essentially a money-handling component for those who wished to send cash on one end and have a person receive it on the other end.  In effect, the mail service would act as a kind of limited escrow.

The point of describing the banking-voting overlap is to emphasize what kinds of security programs would need to be in place for a vote to be transmitted or stored digitally, apart from the in-person voting paradigm.  For example, a kiosk at a post office location could act as a ballot printing aid, properly loaded with the State and Federal candidates, and loaded with the up-to-date ballot pages.  On a dedicated network, this could be done securely, and updated without a physical action by an election worker, even if the initial loading of paper ballots and loading a baseline configuration file (and perhaps running batch testing) would be done with a physical presence to ensure the system is working as expected biannually (before midterms and presidential election).

The ballots in the above scenario would then be printed on the one hand for the customer, allowing the user to digitally or physically sign (and thus record a signature scan for subsequent signature verification), and record the ballot contents within the system for the purpose of an audit.  As this scenario would simultaneously allow for a secure remote login to access mail scans and interact with government agencies on the dedicated communications network, a receipt could then be sent to the individual in accordance with the user's registration at the post office and State's election board, digitally and/or physically, and the same kind of mail-in responses could be sent back for the purpose of curing.

As a chronology interwoven with liability, there are several initial steps that should be noted:

Congress defines when Electors are chosen.  At the time of January 6th, 2021, there were four people in charge of Capitol security, alongside the Capitol Police Board which includes the Architect of the Capitol: Nancy Pelosi (House Majority Speaker), Mitch McConnell (Senate Minority Leader), and their respective bicameral sergeant-at-arms.  President Donald J Trump, in coordination with Secretary of Defense Chris Miller and the SECDEF Chief of Staff Kash Patel, offered, provided for, or made known that ten to twenty thousand National Guard troops were available to deploy at her or Congress' request, in accordance with President Trump's preauthorization through the military chain of command, as set by Nixon and as outlined in the chain of command memorandum indicating the process through the Secretary of the Army.

There is video at the point of the initial barrier breach that shows the crowd becoming agitated by the delay, there was shoving of the gate and an officer threw a punch, resulting in a surge forward, overwhelming the officers.

There were false reports of gunshots on the Capitol Police / Metropolitan Police radio channels prior to the killing of Ashli Babbitt inside the Capitol.  Two protestors died as a result of medicial emergencies in the proximity of explosive munitions fired into the rear of the crowd, which was mostly standing around.  Roseanne Boyland was expelled from a Capitol entryway by Capitol Police where she collapsed and was trampled, before succumbing to what was described in her autopsy report as a complication from an ADHD medication.  Her body was beaten by an officer as she lay dead or dying, before Boyland was dragged into the Capitol in an attempt to save her.

The People have a right to be heard, and that notion is outlined in the First Amendment.  The Freedom of Speech under the First Amendment is considered sacrosanct, and as a result, the right to "peaceably assemble to petition the government for redress of grievances" is considered equally protected.

On January 6th, MPD officers resisted the efforts by those assembled, which produced what can best be described as a melee, and has been characterized as a riot as a result of the initial damage to Capitol windows and the forceful entry into the Capitol building.

It should be noted that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while hidden in a separate building on the Capitol complex, was unaffected by the "so-called "insurrection", and police presence in that building was unaffected as they performed their rounds.  The entirety of the effort of entry was made to the Capitol building, and while officers were injured, one experienced a stroke with potential complications from spray chemical irritant, and several killed themselves after the events of the day, the only individuals killed during the event were protestors.

The right to peaceably assemble is similar in form to the right to congregate for the purposes of religious worship.  To obstruct the right to assemble, or to obstruct access to public property is a violation of the People's rights to freedom of expression.  While Congress has a right to write law, and they have done so to establish statutes wherein they are protected from interruption so as to perform the work of the people in official Congressional business, the 9th Amendment prohibits the Congress from impeding the rights of the People.  The "balance of rights" is a judicial precept which puts the People first and the government second, but one cannot trample the other.  This general principle holds for the Second Amendment as much as the First.  

By individual action in the categorical posture of police against citizens in obstructing their right to assemble on public property and to petition the government for redress of grievances, this was a violation of the First and Ninth Amendment.  The general response of both Congressional authority and police authority gave no impression that a hard line was required on the exterior of the Capitol.  Subsequently, many of those who were charged with merely entering the Capitol building had their 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 10th Amendment rights violated.

Those charged with entry were charged with obstruction of official business, which was construed then as an election crime, in interrupting the electoral vote count.  What commentators fail to mention is that what was interrupted on the day was the contesting of the federal electoral votes for a number of States.

The contesting of the vote count is directly tied to the "fake electors" claim which has resulted in lawsuits and charges against the Constitutional scholars who proposed a solution to the problem they were facing at the time, with votes coming from States that were suspected to have been compromised through their voting systems.

While there were seven States under protest, two were officially contested on January 6th following the forced entry into the Capitol building and what could be described as obstruction of the right to petition the government, by removing the government from the place of their business.  The "rioters" did not technically obstruct their business--those who directed the Congressmen and Congresswomen from the chamber did that.  Those "rioters" were encouraged to make their voices heard by the President.  It was the police who obstructed their rights under the Constitution to do that.  Therein is the insurrection, should you be inclined to view it as an attack on the authority of the Presidency.

It should be noted that Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed at the precipice between the rioters and the Congress members as they were being evacuated, not at the door between the hallway and the chamber where the business was being conducted.  That being said, Congressional business is routinely interrupted by protestors in the course of regular official business, and the typical conduct was on display in the case of Jacob Chansley who politely requested to be directed to the House chamber upon entering the Capitol, where he went, said a prayer, and returned to the halls, where others were petitioning the government (in this case a Capitol police officer) to allow them to remain in their right to further petition the government for redress of their grievances, which was granted by the officer on condition of demonstration of their honest intent.

President Trump had been asked to assist in clearing the Capitol, and pursuant to his authority and the statute pertaining to the Insurrection Act, made a proclamation to disperse, which the People ultimately followed, ultimately not requiring the invocation of the Act which had last been done within minutes of making such a proclamation during the Martin Luther King Jr. riots in 1968.  That proclamation was prevented from being received by social media platforms such as Twitter, which had already conspired to prevent news about the Hunter Biden laptop from being exposed to the public in the leadup to the 2020 election, which these protests were ostensibly about.  TwItter and Facebook were two of the primary platforms that erased evidence of the proclamation.

As Trump noted in his speech at the Ellipse before the walk to the Capitol, the objection he hoped Vice President Mike Pence would make was to use his unenumerated powers to delay the certification or to otherwise set a process by which the objections to the electoral vote count were appropriately adjudicated, as Trump's team's failures to gain standing in the courts for lack of evidence (and for lack of assistance by the States in the process of investigation spanning the past several years including the 2017 Commission on Election Integrity) prevented a judicial solution.  It was only through 3 USC 15 that the electoral vote count could be adjudicated at that point forward, barring some extraordinary injunctive relief from the Supreme Court.

While two States were officially contested (Arizona and Pennsylvania), Pence, as President of Senate, declined to step in and, following the delay made by the evacuation, they made their arguments in the Congress and ultimately declined to delay any further.  Evidence pertaining to those States, but especially a State not officialy contested that day--Georgia--continue to trickle in to today (August 11th, 2024).

In the process of the day, Michigan GOP representatives attempted to deliver the official vote by their slate of electors, having been denied at the State Capitol and denied by the Secretary of the Senate, who refused to accept the votes and pass them to the Vice President.  3 US Code 15 has an explicit protocol for dealing with that precise scenario, and as a result of not receiving the vote by the alternate slate of electors, Pence was denied the opportunity to take action and move the vote to deliberation as was the requirement by statute.

Should a Constitutional or otherwise legal challenge be made against the "official" results of the 2020 general election in any given State, it calls into question the legitimacy of the Electoral vote and the Electoral Certification documents submitted.  In order to rectify any legitimacy of the vote, the "alternative slate of Electors" is required as an alternative, as certified in honest belief of the outcome.  

Whereas the judicial process was utilized in the attempt to establish an injunction so as to better ascertain the facts regarding the election in a variety of States, the general judicial perspective took a narrow interpretation of election law.  The courts ruled that in order to challenge the federal election you needed to claim evidence sufficient to overturn.  It is insufficient to assert preliminary evidence of a conspiracy without having the full evidence in hand, and ultimately that is what many judges ruled on--the sense of the extent of the evidence as a measure of the extent of the real (versus potential) fraud.  Without doing a full investigation there was insufficient evidence, and with insufficient evidence the courts would not force States to allow the investigation that could or would produce such evidence.

Between not having standing as a State issue and not having standing as a federal issue, the reams of evidence--affidavits, reports, testimony--were categorically denied a process of extension into investigation where it would delay or otherwise disrupt the electoral process.

As those legal processes failed, State Representatives were obligated to certify the votes (or not), and despite objections, in all cases the certifications continued as normal.  However, in seven States there were alternative slates of Electors submitted with signed testimony to fact that their votes were the legal representation of the will of the people, and those votes indicated a win for Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

In practice, those certifications were in violation of State law pursuant to the recorded official outcomes of the election by popular vote.  In theory, however, those votes represented the official outcome in the event that the election was ruled to have been conducted illegally or otherwise was tainted by fraud.  As it was the GOP's contention that the election had been conducted in an illegal fashion, their votes represented the legal will of the People of their State.

This scenario has precedent:

In 1960, Hawaii had both parties perform their elector vote duties for the election of John F Kennedy, as there had been potential for the preliminary results to be overturned due to a challenge on a close vote.

As demonstrated in the Michigan Capitol video, the Republican Party Representatives were intentionally blocked from entry into the Capitol to legally submit their votes in accordance with the rules set by the Democratic Party Governor of the State, Gretchen Whitmer.  The Michigan Republicans subsequently certified that they had convened at the Capitol and had performed their duty at the appropriate time--which is exactly what they did.

The counting of the Electoral votes was performed by Vice President Mike Pence, acting President of the Senate.  While Trump and various Constitutional scholars had educated Pence of the legal theory they were working under, Pence received negative advice from retired Judge, J Michael Luttig, who has a particular view about Constitutional law that doesn't match up with many other people, but gets plenty of air time on mainstream news networks.  Mike Pence thus declined to take action, and certified the election.

Following the 2020 election, Congress changed the law that governs the function of the Vice President as President of the Senate pursuant to 3 US Code 15, which covers the counting of the Electoral votes.  Whereas the function of the President of the Senate was to oversee the process—including the contesting of any State votes—and count the votes submitted, the law now states that the role is “ministerial”. 

Whereas in prior years the potential conflict of interest of a Vice President being nominated and potentially elected while overseeing their own election would have potentially been a cause for concern and might have prompted the Senate Pro Tempore to step in upon any kind of recusal, the law has been changed to lessen the apparent conflict of interest--whether that is VP Pence certifying his "boss's" election win, or VP Harris certifying her own win.

As Kamala Harris stated before becoming Vice President:

"I believe that we need to get rid of this President. That's why I'm running to become president of the United States. That is part of the premise, obviously, of my plan."

The same way, however, Kamala Harris was the President of the Senate that oversaw the illegal impeachment of Donald Trump, her political opponent.  For clarity, an impeachment of a civilian is prohibited under US law, with the last time it was attempted being the impeachment of William Belknap in 1876.  That impeachment failed also for the same reason—it’s illegal under the US Constitution, as impeachment is limited to officers of the United States.

The impeachment of William Blount in 1799 established by precedent that the Senate no longer has jurisdiction after the individual has left their position--in that case, after having been previously expelled from his seat in the Senate and thus removed from the government.

If they were to impeach the President ex post facto, they would still need to seat the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, which they didn’t do.  In other words, in either explanation they are in violation of their oath of office, and, in conjunction with their various other actions and inactions, can readily be construed as a violation of the 14th Amendment.  

An “insurrection against the [US Constitution]” is what it sounds like—A rebellion or conspiracy against the law that governs the nation by two or more people.  As the American populace has been widely informed, an individual who has violated the 14th Amendment by way of insurrectionist behavior (and actually charged and tried with it, notwithstanding an insurrection from within the Judiciary that intentionally violates the 5th Amendment rights of the target) is not eligible for the office of the Presidency without the removal of such disability by 2/3rds of the Congress.

There were numerous errors, oversights, and abnormalities from within Georgia.  Fayette County had a series of innocuous errors that were rectified with a little investigation.  In other counties, such investigation did not happen or the results could not be explained with ascertainable fact.

Below is the full text of the proposal submitted in 2024 to address certain problems with the initial tabulation, which serves to balance concerns about error and manipulation.